Discover what it's like to run a bed and breakfast in Alaska,
living on 10 acres in the country, surrounded by mountains.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Pre-Halloween Treat

Really, more people should come to Alaska during the winter. It’s sooo pretty, with thick, puffy snow on every branch of the spruce trees and the grand, white mountains outside my big, picture windows. This will be the first year in several that we have snow for trick or treating. It makes gorgeous, ghouly shadows outside.

It surprised me two nights ago to go from my bedroom to the kitchen in the middle of the night and see whiteness outside the windows—moon glow on the snow. Each year, I forget that snow means that on nights that we can see stars or the moon, that it won’t be “dark” outside. The moonlight on snow makes it light enough to go outside and play or do basic outdoor tasks. It’s pretty much just the months of September and October when it’s pitch-black outside: sunlight hours are reduced, and the brown of the ground doesn’t reflect any light before snow cover. Everyone is always so afraid to come to Alaska ‘in the dark” but the moonglow off the snow makes a lovely and very different light by which to be about all the things we do in the evening and night. Snowmachining (snowmobiling, to most of you, or snowgo, for native Alaskans) at night is ethereal and thrilling. We just need about a foot more of snow to get out on the iron dog!